.S.329

A total sentence of two years’ imprisonment was appropriate following pleas of guilty to distributing infringing articles contrary to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 s.107(1)(d), furnishing false information contrary to the Theft Act 1968 s.17(1)(b) and possessing criminal property contrary to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 s.329(1). For a sustained period, the offender had copied or produced audio books, without the appropriate licences or permissions, and had sold them through the internet for a profit of £56,000.

A judge had erred in holding that he had jurisdiction to make a confiscation order following a postponement order under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 s.14 where the prosecution had not complied with the timetable for the confiscation proceedings. The court had made a forfeiture order, contrary to s.15(2), meaning that s.14(12) applied to prevent the prosecution relying on the saving provision of s.14(11).

A judge’s decision to reject a submission of no case to answer and leave a charge of money laundering before a jury was correct, as there were enormous amounts of evidence as to the suspect movement of funds and the criminal nature of loan monies paid into an account.

A magistrates’ court had erred in allowing a submission of no case to answer at the end of the Crown’s case in an individual’s trial for failing to comply with an enforcement notice. The magistrates had not had sufficient evidence at that stage to conclude that the accused had a valid defence that he was unaware of the existence of the notice, and they had erred in being led into considering the issue of whether the enforcement had been issued in time.

A judge had been entitled to allow the prosecution to add an alternative charge of concealment of criminal property under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 s.327(1) to an indictment containing a charge of conspiracy to steal, and had not been required to consider whether adding such a charge was in the public interest.